Video Blogs

I'm a little behind on the blogging due to dabbling in a new medium: The Video Blog!

Check out the videos below for quick overviews of the last couple weekends of shows. Hopefully I'll have time to come back for the usual verbal synopsis, but these will surely entertain you in the meantime....

FGC Video Blog: Volume 1
September 17-19, 2009 :: Iowa City IA, Lawrence KS, Columbia MO


FGC Video Blog: Volume 2
September 25-26 :: Davenport and Ames, IA

9/25/09 Redstone Room, Davenport, IA

It seems that each time we play at the Redstone Room, it's more fun than the previous time, and last night once again exceeded all my expectations.

Our opener for the evening had canceled, which made for a little more of a relaxed set up for our light show and soundcheck. After all the work was done, we grabbed a quick dinner at the sandwich shop downstairs, and then awaited showtime as the fans started to stream in. Hanging out at the bar, I ground-scored a dollar...wooohooo!



The first set flew by, with the fans raging super hard in the front row. The venue had set up a "riot fence" at the front of the stage, and this probably enticed the crowd into being more rowdy than they may have been had the fence not even been there, climbing on the fence, shaking it, lifting it, and all sorts of other craziness. We even had a kid jump up on stage and dive out into the mass of people, successfully crowd surfing for a full 15 seconds or so. Totally epic!!



We didn't think it could get any crazier, but the second set got even more rowdy, with the crowd grooving hard and going absolutely apeshit. All I wanted to do was watch them go nuts, but the distraction made it hard to concentrate on my bass playing. I even got a "Janis is hot / Janis rocks!" chant between a couple tunes, though Adam swears they were saying "Janis sucks!" Hmmm, I'll need to review the recording. However, there was undeniable Janis support in the form of many WWJD shirt sightings:



After the show, the tear down took forever, and we didn't get to the hotel until well after 4am. Luckily, the continental breakfast was already out, so we raided it like hungry savages.



Now we're off to Ames, Iowa for a show at DG's. I don't know what it is about Iowa, but the people here freakin' ROCK. Will the Ames crew top the enthusiasm of Davenport?? Stay tuned for an update!

9/19/09 Mojo's, Columbia, MO

On Saturday, we had a nice leisurely check-out of our hotel and headed to lunch at a local pizza place that I had a coupon for. This lunch turned out to be a very exciting one, as thanks to a combination of my coupon, the house specials, and an order screw-up, the total to feed 5 people was only $12.11. Nice. We left for Columbia happy and full.

The Mojo's show started out as a bit of a clusterfuck, with the opening band deciding to take over the stage with their setup before we even got there. Good thing we didn't pull that stunt with Victor Wooten the couple nights prior...sheesh. After braving the opening band, we hit the stage for a small but appreciative crowd. The vibe was totally different than our short high pressure opening sets the two nights before, and we all seemed to play a little more adventurously and with less inhibitions. We did a particularly fun version of MSMW's "Little Walter Rides Again," a tune that we used to play quite frequently but hadn't ripped out in some time, so it was fun to revisit it. Another event of note during the show was that Mattias raged so hard that his drum stick caught on his glasses and flung them across the stage, bending up the frames quite a bit. Yes folks, we are too rock-star to smash our instruments and amps, and instead go for the eyewear.

After the show, we hung out with some fans, seizing the opportunity for two WWJD tshirt photo opps. Then back to the hotel for a short night's sleep before heading back home to Chicago the next day.



All in all, a fun weekend!

9/18/09 Granada Theater, Lawrence, KS (with Victor Wooten!)

Night number two with Victor Wooten started out with polite complaining to the Days Inn staff about our disgusting hotel rooms (and their subsequent promise to refund the points we used to pay for them...yes!) and then a long sleepy drive down to Lawrence Kansas.

A nice change from the previous night at the cramped and sweaty Picador, the Granada Theater is a spacious room with a great sound system and it was good to be back. We arrived to find Vic jamming out on stage with three of his kids: 8-yr-old Adam on the drumkit, and his 6 and 11 year old daughters on vocals....musicianship definitely runs in the family!

We got set up and soundchecked, and the crowd filed in as soon as the doors opened, vying for their spot at the front of the stage to get close enough to study Victor's technique...though I pretended it was for me. :) We were instructed to hit right at 9pm sharp, and it was a little nerve-wracking waiting backstage and counting down those final minutes before heading out to face that bass-critiquing crowd. The show went off without a hitch, though, and I felt good about the impression we made on this crowd of mostly new faces for us.

Victor hit the stage thereafter, throwing in a few of the same tricks from the night before, but the sound and sightline were so much better at this venue that it made even the repeats enjoyable. He gave yet another shout out to us, introducing FGC as one of his favorite bands and adding, "What would Janis do? That is the question." I was also completely entertained by Vic and JD Blair's freakin' hilarious on-stage banter -- JD in particular is such a goofball. Plus, as I hoped, Victor brought out his kids to play the tune they were going over in soundcheck. The kids didn't seem at all fazed by the crowd of several hundred people, and the 8-year-old drummer especially was a real treat to watch.

Post-show, we hung out with Victor a bit, and once again, I'm so pleasantly surprised by what a genuine and down-to-earth person he is. We then made the 45 minute drive to our hotel in Kansas City, where we settled into our cushy free rooms at the Sheraton with the best "Do Not Disturb" signs I have ever seen:

9/17/09 Picador, Iowa City, IA (with Victor Wooten!)

This show was a special one for me, given that we were to be opening for one of the greatest bass players of all time, and thankfully I wasn't the nervous wreck that I was for our first Wooten opening last year at Chicago's House of Blues.

We arrived to the venue just as Victor was finishing up soundchecking. He greeted me with a booming "Janis!!!" and introduced me to his wife and four kids who were all on the road with him. I had assumed this tour would be a small operation, given that it's just a duo of Victor and drummer, but no, they had a full tour bus and the family factor, not mention a monster bass rig and an even bigger monster of a drum kit.

Out set went off well. We were kind of crammed onto the small stage, but I think the close quarters made for more tight playing. The room was packed when we started, and it was easy to tell that the majority of them were musicians, since there was much more staring and much less dancing than we're used to. (I instantly got flashbacks of playing shows with Steve Kimock!) But the crowd's motionlessness turned out to be no indication of their enthusiasm, as we got cheers in all the right places and lots of great feedback after our set.

Victor hit the stage a little later, giving a sweet shout-out to me personally as well as the band after a few songs into his set. Needless to say, I was walking on a cloud for the rest of the night. His show was phenomenal, with the usual Victor virtuosity, along with some cool looping and harmonizers and backed up by an insanely funky and tastefully simple drummer named JD Blair, aka "The Groove Regulator." Go check these guys out! www.victorwooten.com

Off to Lawrence Kansas for night number two with the Woot-ster!

9/12/09 Wuhnurth Festival, Muncie, IN

Wuhnurth (pronounced "One Earth") Festival. Interesting spelling. Fun festival!

We made most of the trek to Muncie the night before our set so we wouldn't have to get up early and drive from Chicago, instead crashing in a cushy Candlewood Suites in Indianapolis using our points.
This hotel made us feel like royalty, with a gift bag upon check-in, no questions late checkout, free goodies from the "Candlewood Cupboard" pantry shop, and awesome rooms with full kitchens.

We started the day with a hot breakfast cooked in our rooms, and then headed out to Wuhnurth Fest. The band schedule was running a bit late, so we enjoyed some time in the great weather, hanging with a few other bands and friends and fans.

The set went off well, and it was nice to see some of our die-hards from Chicago raging the front row. We opened with the new "G Song," which is really starting to gel, and also played probably our last "Sittin on the Dock of the Bay" of the summer, in honor of the small lake behind the stage.



Post-show, the hospitality people were excited to feed their first band of the evening, and we loaded up on awesome pasta, salad, and garlic bread.



Adam, Jordan and I headed out later that night, leaving Mattias behind as the ambassador to the fans. On the way home, Adam spotted a drunk driver on the highway during his shift, so I called 911 to report it. We passed the crazy driver and went through an interchange, but about 20 minutes later, Miss Crazy Drunkie in the PT Cruiser whizzed by us once again, weaving in and out of the lanes, and slowing and speeding up randomly. I called 911 again, and while I was on the phone, Crazy Drunkie smashed into a truck about 5 car lengths in front of us. We narrowly escaped a sticky situation and were very grateful for it....we were "wuhn" lucky band!

9/5/09 moe.down, Turin, NY

The trek out to moe.down in upstate New York started out with kind of a stress. Two nights before the show as we were loading up our gear, we find that our van's "Check Engine" light was on once again (see posting from the 8/12/09 show for the previous hellish encounter with this pesky light). Not wanting to drive 1,500 miles round trip with a potential serious problem, we took the van into the shop the next morning. A day's work turned into a day-and-half's work, and Friday's departure time got pushed back a good four hours.

The van was in good shape though, and we hauled ass out to New York, arriving at our hotel well after 3am. We would have to depart the next day by 9:30am to make the rest of the drive and arrive at the festival in time for our noon set, so we were less than happy campers about the lack of sleep, but glad to have made the drive without incident.

Saturday's weather was gorgeous, and festival grounds were set in the mountains, with a chill vibe all around. The "second stage" that we were playing on was actually not too shabby, and was of decent size with killer sound. We were all a little groggy though: While setting up, I thought my amp was broken, but it turned out just not to be plugged in; Mattias and Jordan both had mid-show brain farts with Mattias counting off the wrong song, and Jordan blowing the chords in another; and Adam openly admitted to momentarily falling asleep during the set.

But despite the lack of sleep, we played 2 great sets to a surprisingly big crowd for that early in the afternoon, and received tons of great feedback as we hung out at the festival the rest of the day. Even though we were far from home, it was nice to hear folks calling out song requests during the set and meeting fans afterwards who had seen us at Summer Camp or on our past tours through the Northeast.

The festival also had awesome hospitality, with great a great vegetarian spread, and extras like fresh squeezed orange juice and a secret freezer full of fudgesicles. I was once again the driver at the end of the night, so the rest of the band was obligated to get super drunk, especially Adam, who was in rare form.

Thanks to moe. for an awesome festival, and we hope to be back in future years!

8/29/09 Tanner's, Kimberly, WI

The Tanner's show was a benefit event put on by Organik Entertainment and quite an elaborate production -- great sound and lights, a raffle, vendors, etc. We were well taken care of from the minute we arrived till the end of the night when we crashed in our super comfy comped rooms at the Hilton next door.

It ended up being a very long day and night with the early soundcheck and multiple bands prior to us, but the show was fun. Lots of new and old Wisconsin friends came out, and we stretched out with a long set, in the middle of which Mattias decided to kick my ass with our "Bass and Drum" jam by setting up a wicked fast groove. Thanks, buddy!! I hung in there, though, and will find some way to retaliate.

8/28/09 Urbana Sweetcorn Fest, Urbana, IL

This was our second stint at the Urbana Sweetcorn Fest, our first being 2 years ago. The fest is well-run with great production, but is more of a family event rather than the usual hippie festivals that we play. A different vibe, but fun nonetheless.

The drive down to Urbana went smoothly, but as we were getting set up, the sky became dark and threatening clouds started to roll in. Would this be our third rained out festival set of the summer (6/27 Peoria and 8/9 Denver being the first two)?? Thankfully, the sky magically cleared up within the next 30 minutes or so, and it turned out to be a beautiful evening.

The crowd gathered as we played, with a smattering of our usual fanbase alongside "normal" folk. I knew something was wrong with this crowd when the merch table stats revealed many "Air Jordan" shirt sales and no WWJD sales. ;)

After our set, I got to meet some great fans and enjoy some hella-buttery sweetcorn, and Adam was very pleased with himself for tracking down passes to the VIP section where we stuffed ourselves with free food and beer.

8/20-21/2009 Fat Fest, Wabasha, MN

Fat Fest began with an early departure for the long 6 hour drive up to Wabasha MN. We got nailed with the rain at last year's Fat Fest performance, and the outlook was not boding well for this year either. We crossed our fingers, and while keeping an eye on the sky, got set up and soundchecked, arming ourselves with nearby tarps and towels in the event of a downpour.

We managed to make it through the set with just an intermittent drizzle that thankfully did not blow much into the stage, and the crowd was raging and didn't seem to mind at all. A couple highlights were a sweet "Tutear" > "Trying To Live Up" segway that we magically nailed, and a set closer that started off as "West Egg Party," but melded into "Falling Off the Fence" after Jordan changed his mind midway through the intro. Again, no train wrecks with that segway...Go us! Band photo by Adam (aka "New Adam") Zareczny

Kyle Hollingsworth Band was supposed to follow our set and use some of our gear, but shortly after we finished, the impending downpour ensued and the stage became trashed. Kyle ended up being moved to the other stage, toting along Jordan's vintage Rhodes, while thanking us profusely for subjecting the gear to inclement weather. It was well worth it, though -- Kyle's band rocks, especially the bass player. These guys are on tour this fall...check 'em out!

We partied it up for the rest of the night and then headed back to our hotel, where we received the good fortune of both a 2pm check-out the next day, and coupons for a free hot breakfast at the Perkins attached to the hotel. Ahh, life is good!

The next day we headed back to Fat Fest where Jordan and I would be joining the Everyone Orchestra set. A couple notable members of this incarnation included Michael Kang (from String Cheese Incident) and Vinnie Amico (from moe). It was a fun set, with Jordan rocking the keys for the entire show, and me jumping in on bass halfway through. Vinnie welcomed me to the ensemble with a lightning quick drum-and-bass groove that I could barely hold on for. Gee, thanks, Vinnie!!

After the show, my bandmates got super drunk, and it's always such a joy to babysit them...Thanks fellas.

Back to the hotel, then back to Chicago the next day. On the way home, Adam bugged me with his usual catch phrase, "Ice, I'm hungry. What're you gonna feed me?" Usually I ignore him, but this time offered him a SoyJoy nutrition bar (that I was never going to eat because they are so disgusting), under the condition that he had to eat the whole thing. This picture sums up Adam's SoyJoy experience pretty well, ironically quite absent of joy:

Colorado > Arkansas: "Another Day Living the Dream"

We began the long trek from Colorado to Arkansas on Wednesday afternoon. We had about 850 miles to cover, but our set at the Mulberry Mountain Festival wasn't until Thursday evening, so we had plenty of time to cover the drive. Little did we know...

Less than halfway into the trip, in the middle of nowhere in Kansas, we blew a tire on our trailer. And it wasn't just a flat tire, it was a seriously shredded-to-the-bone mutilated tire. Unreal! This wouldn't have been too big of a setback, except for the following complications: (1) Our spare was a little bit shady and not suitable for the 1000+ miles we had to travel to get to Arkansas and then home to Chicago; (2) Due to our remote location, it was over 2 hours until AAA came to our rescue (though we did pass the time watching the meteor shower, which was pretty cool!); and (3) When putting our spare on, the AAA guy informed us that the wheel bearings on our trailer were dangerously loose and would need to be fixed ASAP or the trailer would spontaneously combust, or something terrible like that.


Getting out the spare tire, packed deep in the trailer. Music gear all over the shoulder of I-70 with traffic whizzing by.

We got up and running again, and continued east at the AAA recommended 50mph until we found some civilization...if you can call it that...remember, we're in Kansas, people. So where do we find a new tire and someone to fix our trailer at midnight on a Wednesday? An internet/GPS/cell phone combo attack finds an on-call tire shop about 50 miles from our breakdown site in Salina KS, and a groggy employee met us at the shop and sold us a new tire and spare (for actually way less than we were getting back home, even with the latenight surcharge...score!). We decided to get a hotel in Salina, get up early to get the trailer fixed, and still hopefully roll on to the festival with plenty of time to spare.

Oh, but that would be too easy, wouldn't it?! After solving the tire problem, we got back into the van to head to a hotel and saw that our "Service Engine Soon" light was on and noticed that the van was shaking pretty heavily when idling. Gimme a f*cking break! We now have both van and trailer repairs to deal with in the morning, and making it to the festival is looking pretty grim.

Adam and I were assigned the morning repair duty, getting up at the ungodly hour of 8:30am to start making phone calls to see who could do these emergency repairs and get us on the road. We found a local repair shop that could do both the van and trailer, and after checking things out, quoted us a time frame of about 2-2.5 hours to get the work done. Our festival set was at 10pm, and we had a little shy of 7 hours to drive; this should work. But, 2 hours turned into 4+ hours, complete with much pacing in the repair shop waiting room, and we didn't get back on the road until 3:15pm.

Jordan manned the wheel for the entire drive to Arkansas with expert speed and control but it seemed that all the forces were against us: an attempted gas/bathroom pit stop where all the facilities were closed, a gazillion toll stops slowing us up, a closed road and detour in Tulsa, and consistent 75mph speed limits leaving no room for our clunky rig to get ahead of the GPS arrival time. We rolled into the festival grounds right at 10pm, the supposed start to our 2 hour set, and had a slew of friends and crew waiting at our stage to get us loaded in at lightning speed, along with a bunch of fans awaiting our set and providing a nice warm welcome.

The downbeat was only 45 minutes late, and we played our asses off to a raging crowd for a full 75 minutes. You'd have thought we'd be tired and lifeless after such a debilitating 24 hours, but we ended up being so energized to have finally made it and to have such an appreciative crowd. It was really one of the most rewarding sets in a long time!

Post-show, we finally had a chance to slow down, hanging out with friends and catching some of Lotus' set. We left the festival around 2:30am and began the hour plus drive to our hotel that night. As if mocking us, our low fuel light came on just as we departed, and of course, we're in the middle of nowhere with no gas stations for at least 30 miles on our route of mountainous roads, and who knows if they'd even be open at this time of night. We could have gone half that distance in the wrong direction to get gas, but decided to just take the risk. Running out of gas would be a pretty comical way to end the day, so even the bad end of the outcome would make for a good story.

I drove us expertly through the mountain roads, barely stepping on the gas pedal and using momentum to propel us down the mountain. Driving 32 miles didn't even push the needle below the red line, and we made it to an open gas station with plenty to spare. High fives and woo woo's ensued, and another day of living the dream had come to an end.

Many thanks to AAA, Commercial Tire, Oard's Auto Repair, Mike A, Micah, Ronny, Tiff, Kevin, Mike R., the festival stage crew and fans, and the many others who helped give a happy ending to our day from hell.

Colorado Recap: 8/7 - 8/11/09

Our Colorado run started off with a latenight show at Denver’s Dancin’ in the Streets Festival on Friday August 7. We arrived to the festival in the late afternoon, just in time to catch some of Steve Kimock’s set. I scoped out the new bass player and had a nice little reunion with the band and crew. FGC hit the stage around midnight, with Kimock and Kreutzmann throwing down next door in Cervantes. Our set was a random ebb and flow of people as folks filtered back and forth between the two shows in the adjacent venues, so it was kind of a weird scene. But we had a good time, and got to hang with Mike from Lotus after the show, and made a new friend, Drew, who helped us load out and even gave me a tie-dye shirt which I am sporting as I type this.

Saturday’s show was at Mishawaka Amphitheatre in the mountains outside of Ft Collins. We set our GPS to the address on the website and proceeded on the lovely drive through the mountains right along a river. Something obviously wasn’t right when our GPS declared our arrival in literally the middle of nowhere with nothing around, and no cell signal for miles to call for directions or get online. We reset the GPS to the city center of Bellvue, the town where the venue was located and turned around to head 20+ miles back where we came from (a good 45 minute drive on those windy mountain roads). About 5 miles into the backtracking, we pass the only sign of civilization for miles, the Mishawaka Inn, and I suggest we pull over and ask for directions. No more directions needed; turned out that this was the venue...how funny!

This was a very cool venue indeed, with an outdoor stage literally right next to a river and surrounded by mountains. The only drawback was the infestation of bees, and I spent the better part of the daylight hours frantically running from them. After getting set up and soundchecked, we enjoyed some dinner on the patio, the Cubs game in the bar, and the classic rock sounds of the opener, Dead Floyd. We then hit the stage for an extended set, and the crowd was enthusiastic and raging.

Sunday’s show was back at the Dancin’ in the Streets Festival, this time on one of the outdoor stages for a short set during headliner Leftover Salmon’s setbreak. Right when it was about time to start loading our gear out onto the stage, the sky took on a threatening look, and the rain suddenly started coming down in buckets. The storm lasted for only about a half hour, but the rain delay meant no setbreak for Leftover Salmon (thus no space for a “tweener” set for us), and not to mention, the stage we were supposed to play on became completely deluged in water. We were pretty bummed about the canceled set, but still managed to enjoy the evening hanging out with The Heavy Pets and Mike and Chuck from Lotus.

On Tuesday, we headed up to Breckenridge to play a show with Dirty Dozen Brass Band at 320 South. We were particularly excited for this show because the guitarist from DDBB (Jake) was a classmate of ours in music school, so it was cool to reconnect with him. In addition to being the opening band, we were also commissioned to loan some of our gear to DDBB, who were traveling without backline. Adam’s amp functioned fine for our set, but during the changeover between bands, it conked out for some unknown reason, leaving Jake without an amp. A totally lame and random turn of events, but Jake eventually recruited another amp and we got to hear him shred with this legendary band. Mad props to him!




Now we’re headed back across the country, stopping at Mulberry Mountain Festival on the way home. Stay tuned for more reports from the road!

Denver Travel Memories: Attack of the Chocolate Pomegranates

We're currently en route to Denver. Since nothing interesting has happened so far (aside from seeing a super tan and fit 50+ year old woman hula-hooping and talking on her cell phone next to her car at a gas station in the middle of Nebraska), I thought I would tell the story of my last journey to Denver.

FGC did a 5-night run in Colorado last March. I had the luxury of flying out there after doing two shows in Virginia with Steve Kimock, while the rest of the band made the long drive out from Chicago in our van and trailer. While in Virginia, I was given a huge bag of my precious coveted chocolate pomegranates by Dr. Lora, good friend of the Kimock bunch and unofficial chocolate pomegranate dealer. Rather than lug the entire bag on the flight in my back pack, I made a travel-size portion using the ice bucket baggie from my hotel room, and put the remainder of the choc-poms in my checked bag.

During the flight, I broke out the baggie and happily munched on the addictive chocolates while watching some movies on my laptop. When the flight landed, I got up from my row and looked back to make sure I didn't leave anything, noticing a brown smudge on the seat. I thought to myself, "Oh great, I sat on a dirty seat for the entire flight?" Oh well, didn't think much of it.

I made a stop in the bathroom once I got into the airport and was completely mortified to find a huge brown smudge on the back of my jeans. Did I poop my pants and not even realize it? No, a quick (and awkward) sniff revealed foul play by chocolate. How did this happen? I then pulled out the remainder of the choc poms from my backpack to find that the flimsy ice bucket baggie from the hotel had a hole in it, and all the while that I was eating these things on the plane, they were, unbeknownst to me, dropping into my lap, between my legs, and melting all over my ass.

Has this embarrassing incident made me paranoid about eating chocolate pomegranates since, or turned me off of them altogether? Hell no; I am addicted to them as ever. But it has taught me to always look behind me!

8/1/09 3G's Festival, Black River Falls, WI

Saturday began with a long drive up to the 3G's Festival (Grateful Garcia Gathering) in Black River Falls, Wisconsin. We were excited to be the Saturday headliner for this small festival, on Jerry Garcia's birthday no less.

The 3G's Festival was your standard hippie music festival, complete with many bands, camping, peaceful dirty hippies, and a good time for all. The only part of it straying from the norm was the festival grounds, which when not hosting the occasional music festival, is otherwise known as the "Adults Only Sexual Freedom Campground." When we pulled into the festival grounds and saw the "Adults Only" disclaimer at the gate, we weren't quite sure what this entailed until we saw some nudists and later found a barn full of treasures which Adam had way too much fun exploring:




Adam enjoying some light reading...


Our playground tour guide asked if we wanted to try turning the electricity on in the cage. We politely declined.


Kids, don't try this at home....



Musically, the show was a blast. The stage sound was great, and we whipped out a few Jerry tunes in honor of his birthday, getting a little adventurous with an impromptu Shakedown Street > Get Outta My Life > Shakedown Street (which Jordan only mildly butchered, maybe because he got distracted by the heavy-set naked guy in the audience).

Post show, we enjoyed a nice hang with some fans and friends while loading the trailer in slow motion. Thanks again to Johnny and Tim and the 3G's crew for a great festival!

The blog is back! 7/31/09 Vaudeville Mews, Des Moines, IA

FGC has had a uncharacteristically light summer up until this point, but we're back in full swing, and I'm hoping my blog will be too. We'll see.

Yesterday's show in Des Moines started out with some ups and downs. The first "down" was having to get up early for the 6+ hour drive and be on the road by 11:30am. Musicians brains do not compute before noon. I tried to ease the pain by buying everyone breakfast at Dunkin' Donuts, the day's first "up." Aren't I sweet?

We get on the road and encounter another of the day's "ups". I check my email to find that I had beaten the Red Lion Hotel chain's Best Rate Guarantee and scored 2 nights of 2 rooms for FREE for the band's travels to Colorado in a couple weeks. Stickin' it to the man! I wasn't happy for too long, as when we stopped for gas about an hour later, we realized that our video camera and audio recorder had been swiped out of the back of our van while we were loading up at our house that morning. LAME.

We tried to shake off the bad news, instead focusing on the mountain of work ahead of us for the evening. Luckily Des Moines fan, Dax (from now on spelled "Daxxx" cause it's much cooler), was on hand to help load in and set up our gear and light show. Using our lights always adds an extra hour or two of setup, and getting 'em rigged up at the Mews was no easy feat, involving ladders and death-defying acrobatics. I pleaded "girl" and did not participate beyond running cables.

The place filled up and we started off the show with a brand new tune we've been working on ("G Song", for now), that we weren't even sure was quite ready to be debuted, but our Des Moines crowd is such a comfortable and welcoming bunch that it's always easy to be risky there. We pulled it off pretty well, and the second set unveiled 2 more new songs, an original temporarily called "F Song" or "Groove Cheese", as well as a Medeski Martin and Wood cover called "Wiggly's Way." It's a shame we didn't have our audio or video recorders on hand to capture this show; it was certainly a fun night!

We ended the show a few minutes before curfew and enjoyed some time hanging with the fans before they got kicked out, and then the joy of tearing everything down. We got to our hotel close to 4am and crashed hard.



On to the 3G's Festival today to rock Jerry Garcia's birthday show!

Farewell to Steve Kimock Crazy Engine

Well, the news has hit the streets. Below are the “official” statements from Kimock camp and myself in regards to my departure from the Steve Kimock Crazy Engine. I’ll probably return with some “unofficial” thoughts and comments, and as always, my open door policy to friends, fans, Facebook acquaintances and strangers stands, so feel free to contact me with your thoughts.

I know everyone's biggest question for the moment is..."Will the blog continue?" And I believe that answer is YES. There are still plenty of interesting adventures ahead on the road with FGC, and you will (hopefully...probably) get to read about them here. Now on to business...


From Steve Kimock Productions:

Steve Kimock Crazy Engine is saying farewell to bassist Janis Wallin. Conflicting schedules and diverging creative interests have led to a mutual agreement to part ways, and while all parties are confident this is the right choice, we will miss Janis and are sad to see her go. Steve's inclination to fill the bass chair promptly combined with impractical travel logistics have led us all to conclude that it would be best for Janis's departure to be effective immediately; however, we look forward to working together in the future as time and schedules permit. We'd like to thank Janis for a wonderful couple of months, and we sincerely wish her all the best!


From me:

After speaking at great length, Steve and I came to a mutual agreement that although the Crazy Engine has thus far made some fantastic music and has been a positive experience for all involved, it's not the right assembly of players for a long-term project. With Steve's and my own artistic and professional goals in mind, the Crazy Engine and I will be parting ways effective this weekend. I regret the last minute nature of this change and apologize to those that were particularly looking forward to seeing me with the band in the coming weeks. Working with this incredible group of musicians and crew has been the experience of a lifetime. I am extremely grateful for the opportunity, and look forward to working with Steve again in the future. At this point however, I'm most excited to return my focus full time to Family Groove Company!

Thank you Steve, Melvin, Johnny, Cheryl, Shirley, Brian, Charlie, Chris, Jenn and the FLOK for a wonderful adventure. And to Jordan, Adam, Mattias, Mike, and the supportive FGC fanbase who I love dearly, I can't wait to get down with you all at the next show!

Janis

6/7/09

Well, this would have been a posting on the second night at Mountains of the Moon Festival, but the show was unfortunately canceled. Don't ask why, I'm just the bass player. So instead, please enjoy some more photos from beautiful Nelson, British Columbia, and feel free to click the link at the bottom to view more.










Click here to check out a bunch more photos from the trip!

6/6/09 Mountains of the Moon Festival, Nelson, BC

My day started off with 11 awesome hours of sleep, and I awoke wondering if the rest of the band had made it OK. (Steve, Johnny, and Charlie were traveling on later flights than Brian, Melvin, and me). Not only did they not get to the hotel until 10am that morning after traveling all day and night, I find out that Charlie was not admitted into Canada and was stuck at a hotel just across the border. What could have possibly caused this snag?

(a) Charlie is a Russian spy
(b) Charlie is a registered sex offender
(c) Charlie tried to smuggle in contraband everything up his butt
(d) Charlie could not pronounce "out" and "house" or "eh" properly when grilled by the border patrol

I quickly rebounded from the shock of the absence of my usual tour/meal buddy, and spent the afternoon exploring Nelson alone. I had some great breakfast at a local restaurant recommended by the promoter and then took a long walk around the town and down by the lake. The city is very quaint, and the scenery is breathtaking.

Later that day, the promoter took us and Portable Payback (Jurassic 5 offshoot) out for an early dinner at a Greek/Italian restaurant. Still slightly disgruntled from the previous evening's ridiculously long wait for food, we were all pleased to find the salads/appetizers arriving after 9 minutes and the entrees after 22 minutes. Woohoo! I became a little chummier with the Jurassic 2, and learned that Soup has a weakness for Dawson's Creek, and Mark has a weakness for whipped cream (stealing all of it off of his neighbor's dessert plate).

We headed over to the festival around 6pm, driving about 30 miles (err, 48 kilometers) to Salmo. The festival site was located on a sort of plateau, surrounded on all sides by mountains. As a resident Midwesterner for the past 7 years, the scenery around here never ceases to be completely and totally entertaining to me! Not to mention, there were dogs everywhere, so I upped my dog-pet count in a serious way!

The production was running late and by the time we got on stage, the sun was almost down and it was insanely cold...."Cold as a witch's tit," to quote Mr. Steve Kimock. We hit a further delay when Melvin realized that his Hammond organ was not playing in the proper key due to a weak power generator. We spent a few minutes troubleshooting before finally deciding to just tune the guitars and bass to match the organ, which was almost an entire whole step down. I wasn't prepared for the impact this would have on the music, as every song sounded totally strange and slightly off center from where my ear wanted it to be. But it was definitely interesting!

The show went well despite cold toes and fingers and strange tunings. We had a fun "Footprints" and another exploratory "Long Form Part 4" that melded into a samba-type groove at the end. (Apologies, but given the absence of Charlie, I don't believe this show was recorded!).

After the show, we hustled back to the hotel to thaw out. Round 2 at the festival is tonight and the weather is forecast to be just as cold. I think I'm going to go out and find some hand/toe warmers!

Greetings from Canada!

Here's how a "typical" band travel day goes when you have to cover 2000 miles and cross 2 time zones and an international border to get to the next shows.

Little Rock, Arkansas > Nelson, British Columbia

6:00am - Wake up after 4ish hours of sleep from gig the night before
6:45am - Lobby call for the Little Rock airport for an 8:20am flight.
7:05am - Transported to airport, checked in, security screened, already at gate for 8:20am flight (really would have loved that extra 45 minutes or so of sleep)
9:30am - (Mountain Time) Arrive in Denver for 2+ hour layover
10:30am - Breakfast at an airport cafe with Melvin and Brian
12:00pm - Fly from Denver to Spokane WA (first time in WA...cool!)
1:30pm (Pacific Time) Arrive in Spokane, meet up with other festival band (featuring 2 members of Jurassic 5!) and take 3.5 hour shuttle bus up to Canada
4:45pm - Middle-of-nowhere border patrol detains us for an entire hour
6:45pm - Finally arrive at hotel in Nelson BC
7:15pm - Sit down to dinner with the Jurassic 2 and promoter at a hip restaurant in Nelson.
8:00pm - Still waiting for food to be served...
8:15pm - Still waiting....
8:30pm - Salads served. Musicians getting grumpy.
8:50pm - Entrees finally served. Musicians scarf like animals.
9:30pm - Pet dog outside restaurant!!

19 hours later, I'm finally going to bed. GOOD NIGHT!!!

Waiting at the Canadian border. Will they let us stupid Americans in?


View of some Nelson mountains from the hotel doorstep: